of war, human nature, international affairs, history, etc.

“Anyone will tell you war should be avoided at all cost” – only fools who have never been threatened, attacked or oppressed will tell you this. What people who have fought will tell you is that war should be avoided, if possible. Meaning if there are other reasonable means to accomplish your objective, they should be tried. That isn’t even close to saying “at all cost”.

Some nutjob fanatics" – fanatics most certainly. Nutjobs? I guess that depends on your definition of the term. It’s not one I’d use to describe the men who committed those acts. Were they truly nutjobs, they would never have been able to carry it off.

“Cause and effect are tricky things” – ok? Just what is your point? That the “effect” of the airliners being crashed into US targets was the result of some cause that the US was responsible for? That’s a nice theory. Care to prove it?

“Was the effect a thinking, rational reaction” – Very much so. If we are to accept your premise that Bin Laden and his followers are nutjobs, then by definition any action they take is likely to be unthinking and irrational. I doubt any of the people looking for Bin Laden or dealing with violent non-governmental organizations believe that their opponents are irrational or can’t think.

“The overall global strategy, a disastrous blunder” – another definitive statement. On what basis do you make this claim? There have been no further attacks on the US. Non-fundamental pro-Western governments has been established in Iraq and Afghanistan. By all accounts the non-secterian violence is diminishing in Iraq. Libya has renounced their nuclear and state sponsered terrorism programs and is trying to rejoin the rest of the civilized world. Assuming you actually understand exactly what our global strategy is (I’d only be willing to take a somewhat educated guess at it), where has it failed? Have you considered the possibility that the timeframe for determining the successful (or not) outcome of a strategy might be in terms of decades?

“But belief in causes is a very tricky thing” – perhaps. If you lack things like faith, conviction, sense of purpose, belief in something greater than yourself.

than those currently opposed to — as well as those who support — the president, his party, and his decisions.

I just saw the guy last week after about 9 years of neglected friendship. He’s in bad shape. He went into the militray my junior or senior year for 4 year run. This was 1999. He was a star football player and basketball star, played baseball and still had time to hang out and go biking. He has since gained a hundred pounds of pure alchohol weight and went from not smoking to 2 packs of cig’s per day. I blame this on the military because, in his own words, those were the only 2 things to do over there in between normal routines and the occasional death of a friend. Occasionally he had to kill someone, and he said it like it wasn’t a big deal. Here was a country boy who wouldn’t hurt a ground squirrel talking about killing a man and not even blinking. Me friend died long ago.

I have. Former officer in Saddam’s Army, a Kurd who had to go into hiding after resigning his commission and who later worked as an interpretor for US forces.

You should hear his views on the US being in Iraq and on how long we should stay there.

“Note that I am not attempting in the least to prove the existence of any God…”

Reason #1: it can’t be done.

That, my friend, is fascinating. We’re responsible because we "feel like we are free", even though we aren’t really free at all? I think that takes post-modernism somewhere I didn’t really know it went. And theism is supposed to be illogical? :-) Maybe you’ve not worded it clearly.

It’s no so much that people need to be punished, but because people that have been determined to commit one evil are highly probable to commit another moral evil. So to hold someone responsible is not necessarily to blame for what they did rather to try to stop them for more causing more evil.

I think i wrote that Hagee’s statement was illogical, I’ll give that it wasn’t illogical, rather wrong. Also Katrina was an obvious phyiscal evil, that Hagee said moral evil caused, the gay pride parade. Where as the drunk driver is committing a moral evil and God, if free will exists, wouldn’t stop it. So the Hurricane was caused by God to kill gay people and just happened to wipe out everyone else, whereas the drunk driver would not be stopped by God.

Slavery in the bible from evilbible.com

Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do. Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments. The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves.

 

    Many Jews and Christians will try to ignore the moral problems of slavery by saying that these slaves were actually servants or indentured servants. Many translations of the Bible use the word “servant”, “bondservant”, or “manservant” instead of “slave” to make the Bible seem less immoral than it really is. While many slaves may have worked as household servants, that doesn’t mean that they were not slaves who were bought, sold, and treated worse than livestock.

 

    The following passage shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.

 

    However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

 

    The following passage describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated.

 

    If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

 

    Notice how they can get a male Hebrew slave to become a permanent slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he says he wants to become a permanent slave. What kind of family values are these?

 

    The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?

 

    When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

 

    So these are the Bible family values! A man can buy as many sex slaves as he wants as long as he feeds them, clothes them, and screws them!

 

    What does the Bible say about beating slaves? It says you can beat both male and female slaves with a rod so hard that as long as they don’t die right away you are cleared of any wrong doing.

 

    When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

 

    You would think that Jesus and the New Testament would have a different view of slavery, but slavery is still approved of in the New Testament, as the following passages show.

 

    Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

 

    Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

 

    In the following parable, Jesus clearly approves of beating slaves even if they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.

 

    The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. “But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given.” (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

Also just to clarify this is more a personal thing “why I don’t have a God.” I’m not trying to convince anyone. I personally believe in trying to change peoples beliefs unless they are dangerous to others.

JB will be in contention for ROY because he is a baller, I rewatched the summer league game last night when he scored 36 points including 29 in the second half, and the game winner, then dunked so hard Rudy got jealous, Jack NEVER did anything like that, he would get the ball in the 4th, drive to the basket, and loose it out of bounds, OR, Jack in the corner for three, fakes the shot and drives the lane, oh wait, he stepped out of bounds again!

jarret left.
Sophia

with hot, spicy poop shooting out of your bum.

I’m not qualified to judge which is the bigger one. But I agree, O’Reilly is a great example of a jackass.

……world peace…………………….cancer…………………………………health care in general …………hunger………………… education …………..Blazers…………Oops………Ummm…….Amen.